‘Neil,’ he said, military commander-like.
‘Gordo,’ I said back to him, in official attendance.
‘Speeches recommence in twenty-five minutes, can we just have a brief chat about the run of things? I need your help.’
He shuffled me off into the chef ’s quarters where three Asian men lined up an army of chipolatas on floral-rimmed paper plates. Gordon told me to ‘distract Courtney for a bit’, as he had something ‘special’ coming for her in about twenty minutes, just before my speech, and she ‘can’t get suspicious or it won’t work’.
I nodded and told him he could rely on me to distract her, and I sensed it was only me who felt the enormous and ironic resonance of this. He said he knew he could rely on me, he knew this, and on his wedding day by the sea I wondered if and when he would smile. Was this not the happiest day of one’s life? It looked tense from my seat in the stands, but who was I, and what did I know about what we should feel and when we should feel it? I was lurching dangerously towards the conclusion that as we aged, we cared less and less about what might happen, and whom it might happen to. We cared much less than we should, but we went about pretending that we cared the fuck out of each other in some vain attempt to obtain a sense of decency, because decency was purpose and purpose was light and without light the ocean said ‘come here tonight’.
‘You alright, G-Love?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah, man!’ he snapped at me. ‘Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?’
‘No man, it’s such a beautiful day,’ I said, remembering just how useless and foolish I was and how my words and actions had never caused anything but harm.
‘Hey, Nelly,’ he said, changing down a key. ‘There’s one more thing.’
‘Yeah, man, anything,’ I said.
‘Regarding the speech…’
‘Yes!’ I said.
‘Just… and I want you to say whatever is in your heart about Courtney and me, and about how much we mean to you and what we did for you and all, but, well, Albert’s a bit worried you might get too creative or – what’s the word he used? – “arty” about things, so…’
‘Mate, you don’t need to worry about me,’ I said, and he immediately broke into my space with his apologetic hands on my neck.
‘It’s not me saying it! I feel like a dick saying it – I’m sorry I said it, you say what you want to, say whatever the fuck you want.’
‘It’s only a short speech,’ I said, and it was, now that I had decided just to read out the start and the end bits and leave out the middle, the bit where I’d planned to quote from The Princess Bride and a bit of Cyrano de Bergerac.
‘Short and sweet, mate, that’s the name of the wedding game.’
‘Hopefully not the name of the marriage though,’ I said, but he did not laugh because he had not heard me, he was deafened by the sound and power of one man’s wedding in his ears.
‘Means a lot, you speaking at my wedding, mate. I love you,’ Gordon said.
‘I love you too, Gordon,’ I said, and I did, more than all the sand outside.
‘Righto, now go keep Courtney distracted while I prepare my show!’ Gordon raised his thumbs and disappeared into the kitchen toilets.
I pushed out of the doors and back into the corridor of love-and-marriage to find Sarah Kirkwood standing alone with a packet of Benson & Hedges ultra lights open and flopped out towards me.
‘Ciggie?’ she said, flicking the bottom of the pack so that one of the darts pushed up in height, suggesting itself like a hand in a classroom of cancer.
‘I’d love one,’ I said, and we were all set to go outside when Oscar came barrelling towards me in a scream and leapt up onto my waistcoat. I clutched him to me and inhaled the sweet nectar of youth and enthusiasm and I was feeling again, feeling something in the manner of hope and it was disturbing, this feeling that life was worth living, and I tried to deny it but his fresh hair and ebullient grin were palpable. His mouth was smeared with dried chocolate and his eyes were razzed with the dance of sugar drinks; he would not sleep for days.
‘We’re going to run,’ said Dad, plucking Oscar from my chest.
‘But I’m up next,’ I said to him, and like a shot I needed him to stay, I just needed him here so badly. Daddy, please don’t go again – I’m trapped in the rain, I’m scared of monsters, don’t leave me here Daddy.
‘Up next what? You singing a song?’ he asked with a wink, and I could hear Sarah scoff under her breath at this poor joke.
‘No, I’m making a speech,’ I said earnestly.
‘Neil is the best man,’ Sarah said in a reporter’s voice, and it sparked my father’s fuse, women didn’t talk to men like that.
‘I’ve heard him speak before,’ Dad said, rocking from side to side.
‘It’s cool, Dad,’ I said.
‘Oscar’s got to get home to bed; I’ll be in the doghouse if I keep him up any longer than this.’
‘It’s only another fifteen minutes,’ I pointed out.
‘She’s already called ten times, I had to jump through hoops to even get here, son – think of that, why don’t you?’
‘I should have invited Mum,’ I said quietly.
‘What?’ he said, leaning forward to hear with a scowl.
‘Well I had a choice between you and Oscar or Mum and Agatha as my guests, and I brought you because I thought you knew Gordon better, but you’re not even staying for my speech, which makes me think I should have invited Mum and Ag,’ I said, reaching for a lighter in my pants pocket.
‘It’s not all about your speeches, Neil. Maybe it’s time you realised that.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Don’t swear around Oscar.’
‘I’m not saying it’s about my speech, I’m just saying –’
‘Sounds like it. Sounds like it to me,’ Dad said, crouching down and wiping Oscar’s mouth with his shirt as he talked to me, and I can’t remember him ever being that close to me when I was young, to my mouth with a wipe or a shirt of hygienic concern.
‘I’m going to go outside and smoke,’ said Sarah, so polite, and her back is strong and tanned as it moved away down the stairs of the surf club.
‘Not a bad sort,’ Dad noted.
‘Dad, I want you to stay,’ I said, turning back to him. ‘I want you to be here to listen to what I have to say to Gordon, to my best friend who I built the house with. It’s got a bit of you in it too, the speech, and it’s funny, it’s not weird.’
‘Write it down for me, son,’ he said.
‘Dad, I swear it’s not weird.’
‘You’ll understand one day about sacrifices, you’ll understand the real world one day – I hope so anyway. Now go in there and enjoy your friend’s wedding, and remember, it’s their day not yours, ok?’
And with that he dragged Oscar away, up the grassy hill, underneath the metal handrail and over the road to his instructor’s car. I felt gutted, but it sat familiar, a lifetime of exits just when I needed him most. And nothing would change it, not even Oscar with his chubby cheeks and golden spirit could fix this. And as his figure disappeared in the saline mist I allowed myself to give up on him and in doing so lost another chunk of my will to live.
Kirkwood was waiting for me underneath the outdoor shower recess; she pretended she wasn’t by checking her phone as I arrived down the concrete stairs.
‘Oh, it’s you – all good?’ she said, pushing off the wall.
‘Yeah, I’m cool,’ I said. ‘I think I lost my lighter though.’
She lit my bent cigarette and I leant on the wall beside her and smoked, sucking in the tar and the ten million chemicals that respected me for who I was.
‘That boy loves you,’ Sarah said to me, with a teacher’s smile.
‘Oscar?’ I asked, exhaling plumes of smoke and loathing for that man, my dad.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He adores you, you’re his hero.’
‘He’s a kid; anyone who is an adult is a hero to a kid.’
&n
bsp; ‘No, he knows you,’ she said. ‘You’re one and the same.’
‘I hope for his sake you’re wrong on that front!’ I laughed darkly into the darkness.
She moved closer to me, and I became aware of the precious sweep of freckles that drifted across her squashed nose like a flock of distant birds. She was plain, but she was beautiful in that she knew it.
‘You have the same cheeks and eyes; he could be your son,’ she said.
‘He’s alright, that boy, he’s pretty alright.’
‘And you’re beautiful with him, Neil. You’re so natural with children, the way you talk to them, you don’t patronise them, you just see them for who they are and you get on their level. You’re going to be a wonderful father one day.’
Time stopped as I considered this, a pram and a barbecue, a baby seat and a trip to the zoo, first day of school, eat your peas, no balls in the house please.
‘I’m so fucked up, Kirkwood,’ I said, dropping my cigarette and my control too, tears streaming down my cheeks. I could not hold it in anymore; six months of drinking vodka on my own and repressing it all was bursting out of me.
‘Hey, hey…’ she hushed, as she brought me to her and her to me. I couldn’t hold her tight enough, I couldn’t cry hard enough, I couldn’t need her more.
‘Don’t let me go,’ I said, crying into her long neck.
‘I won’t, I’m here, baby boy,’ she replied, gripping me closer, her thumbs in the caverns of my neck, pushing up then down so slow and deep and reassuring.
‘I want to be something,’ I said to her wet throat. I was buried in her and I would never leave, I would carry on in her normal, capable, compassionate arms. She would save me; she would balance this volcano with sense.
‘You can be anything you want to be,’ she said to me, her leg moving up and in between mine, alerting my cock and everything that rises.
‘Will you help me?’ I asked her, and she instantly pushed away from me. Had I stepped too far, misread this entirely? She is but a friend being a friend, and here was I asking for her hand to walk me down this cobbled path. But my paranoia was just that, as she took my face in her hands and stared deep into my eyes, tears welling and wobbling in her own brown globes as she spoke to me in a cracked voice.
‘Neil, I’ll be anything you want me to be. I love you, and Dylan loves you.’
And I wondered just how she could love me, what was this based on: a flirt and a couple of chats at the photo shoot, or was it our shared schooling experience? We’d hardly bonded there. Was this enough for love to rear its head, or was it just the cry of the lonely? Was this the voice of desperation, fearing a life of heated-up Lean Cuisine and unwooded chardonnay in front of the television alone as the baby slept in the nursery?
‘We could be family,’ she said, and it wasn’t a question. ‘Do you like me, Neil?’
I kissed her full on the mouth, and she moaned; she had not been touched since the beginnings of Dylan. With every section of hard kissing she pulled away and stared at me, moaning, breathing heavily, making sure it was a physical and actual man that she was kissing, that the face she was holding was not a mirage. My tongue was behind her teeth, I bit her top lip and she squealed, so I crashed into her arse with my left hand.
‘We can make a home together,’ she said, her hand on my crotch, stroking the length of my burgeoning cock through my trousers. Sex is family, sex is tomorrow, sex is security, sex is contractual, sex is death.
‘Kids and a house,’ I said, biting her ear, and rubbing my forearm between her thighs.
‘You’re with me now,’ she said, and I kissed her flabby left tit, lifting it out of its strappy home. Her nipple between my teeth, I sucked hard and narrow until she cried out.
‘Be gentle,’ she said, ‘I’m just a little thing.’
You’re all sturdy netballers down here reared on baked beans and sausages in a can, don’t play coy. I grabbed the front of her neck and forced her back into the shower recess wall, her eyes opened in fright as I scooped my arm down under her hem and further, beneath the tightly wound pantyhose. I found the outskirts of her knickers and they were wet so I slid my hand inside and pressed the top of her clitoris with two fingers – I’m going to fuck you against this wall until the future comes.
‘Neil,’ she said to me, ‘we can’t here.’
‘We can do anything, Sarah. Isn’t that what you said?’
As I pushed my fingers inside her pussy and coiled them up inside her, she rocked back, cracking her head against the brick wall. I tightened my grip on her throat; her windpipe worked hard between my thumb and fingers for breath and this was the magic place, this was the perfect oblivion, this was danger and I didn’t care where it went from here.
‘Neil, you’re choking me,’ she said, and for School Prefect I thought she would come up with something less obvious.
‘I know,’ I said, and I closed my hand tighter around her larynx.
‘Neil,’ she said, ‘you’re scaring me!’
‘I’m scaring you?’ I said, and for a second I blacked out then light returned.
Her neck was pungent now, a horrid cocktail of White Musk, baby spew and acrid sweat. I slammed its flimsy flesh back into the wall as the rest of my hand rose up inside her, she tried to scream but my nose and cheek were in her mouth, her legs tightened on my hand and her body froze as she went, quivering like milk, a foot above the ground, neck bent across the shower head, which fell across her crown like a metal fascinator. She looked dumb so I released her.
‘Fucking hell, Neil,’ she said, pulling herself together and reaching for any available air the sea or wind was willing to proffer.
‘It’s all good,’ I said, and the rain fell like a tissue would fall, soft and wavy in the air, then to the ground without a sound, just as it did last night, when Courtney called me from the hotel and asked me to meet her down by the sea.
33
We were halfway through a Crowded House mega-mix when the Nokia 8210 Gordon had bought for me rang out beneath the folk. Gordon was on acoustic guitar, I was on vocals, and Albert and the rest of the boys were on percussion (saucepan and chopsticks). The groom and his men were all thrown in together, shacking up at Gordon’s massive waterfront home, two miles from where the bridal party were gathered at the Rydges hotel in North Cronulla.
Albert had picked me up from the ferry wharf and driven me to Wanda Beach that afternoon, Gordon handing us a cold beer from a bucket full of cold beers the moment we stepped onto the balcony. I had intended to stay the night, as the restaurant we were heading to was across the road and there was no point travelling all the way back to Bundeena, plus the ferry wrapped things up at 10 pm and I had assumed the pre-wedding dinner would kick on till at least the small hours of the big day. Gordon loved a drink, and he loved to drink lots when he was proud, and he had never been more proud. The dinner was good, I had the lamb shanks, though it was the red wines I still remembered, and even though we were fuck-eyed and full as fuck, Albert still ordered six racks of Rib-a-licious ribs on return, which was when my phone rang, a landline number, from around this 9523 part of town.
‘Hello,’ I said, beneath the second chorus of ‘Mean to Me’.
‘Neil, it’s me – it’s C .’
I stepped away from the band, Gordon asking me who it was with his eyebrows. I waved him off with an ‘oh just someone’ gesture and tripped into the palm with a whisper. ‘Courtney… wassup?’
‘Can you come and see me now, please?’ she asked, sniffling.
‘What’s wrong? Something wrong?’ I asked, too pissed to hold the thing.
Gordon had stopped playing guitar and was watching me, intrigued by the way I hid the phone in my hair and neck. Albert was still beating the chopsticks on the pan though, which was annoying, the man had so little rhythm that even Crowded House’s 4/4 ballads were a battle.
‘Are you ok?’ I asked.
‘Just come. And don’t tell Gordon,’ she said, hanging up. Like
in the American television shows, I stayed on the phone long after the call was over.
‘Who fuck dat?’ Gordon asked, strumming the first chords of ‘Better Be Home Soon’.
‘Ahhh, it’s just someone from the thing…’ I said.
‘What thing?’ Gordon asked.
‘The Bundeena thing. Just to do with some… kids I’m working with.’
‘What kids?’ Gordon scrunched his fat face.
‘You got a coat?’ I asked, pointing inside.
‘Hey, ya can’t go out now – it’s fucking belting with rain!’
‘And we just ordered the ribs,’ Albert added. ‘Rib-a-licious!’
Albert kept tapping the saucepan as Gordon strummed the guitar with reckless funk.
I spun around in the kitchen, drunk as I could remember not remembering. I grabbed a North Face puffer jacket off the hook and turned to see Gordon in my face, wielding a beer and staring at me as I zipped up the puff.
‘Where you going, Cronk?’ he asked, eyes cracked and red.
‘Got to do something.’
‘Something what? It’s the night before my wedding.’
‘Yes, exactly. And I’ve got to go do a thing.’
Gordon shook his head at me, somewhere between pissed off and bewildered. ‘What, man? Fucken spill it.’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘You are telling me.’ Gordon held me there.
‘Can you just let me go?’ I pleaded.
‘Just tell me where you’re going. Albert and me were going to light a joint, get into some jam sessions – eat some ribs. My last night as a single man!’
‘I really… G-Man, I will be back so soon, I just have to do something and it’s not important… I just can’t tell you because it’s a surprise.’ I lied well and he bought it better, chuffed his broken friend was coming good at this special time.
How it feels Page 28